Who Ran The Worst Senate Campaign in 2018?

kapak44
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	Who Ran The Worst Senate Campaign in 2018? « on: October 01, 2019, 05:42:58 PM »
	« edited: October 01, 2019, 05:58:15 PM by kapak44 »

Hello everyone. Several months ago, I started a thread titled “Who Ran The Worst House of Representatives Campaign in the 2018 Election Cycle?”, which produced some interesting and informative discussions. I thought it only fair that a similar evaluation was made for the U.S. Senate campaigns that were held this cycle for reasons of being equal, and also due to the Senate having more of an impact than the House of Representatives. So the question I ask here: Who do you think ran the worst U.S Senate Campaign in 2018? To make things simple, I am not counting special elections that did not happen in November 2018 (so no choosing Roy Moore), since the circumstances there are different enough from the regular elections to not be fairly considered on an even field. For the few who care about the Minnesota special election though, that one is fair game. As with my previous thread, I chose three contenders from each of the Democratic and Republican parties to provide an equal analysis for the two factions, and provided the reasons why I think these candidates were selected for running the worst campaigns. Without further ado:

Democratic:

Bill Nelson. This is by far my number one choice, as he lost a U.S. Senate race that the Democrats absolutely should not have lost given the national and local environment, as a three-term incumbent no less. It is pretty goddamn impossible to overstate how much of a favorite he was at the start the 2018 cycle, given that it would be (and indeed) was a democratic wave and that Florida was considered to be a swing state at the presidential level. Turns out, that wasn’t enough to get Bill Nelson to win. He seriously fell asleep on the wheel on engaging with and turning out the Hispanic vote, especially in Miami-Dade and Osceola counties. His outreach was the Spanish speaking populations was seriously cringe-worthy, as he did not air a single Spanish ad until September. In particular, Bill Nelson also did not have a good counterweight to Rick Scott’s outreach efforts towards the Latinos, and a shockingly large fraction of that voting population especially Puerto Ricans, broke for Rick Scott as a result. Finally, Bill Nelson also seemed to be depending too much on Andrew Gillum turning out the progressive vote and the potential coattails, which did not prove to be effective against his race with DeSantis. Yes, I know Broward County and Brenda Snipes’ screw-ups played a big role, and yes, Rick Scott spent a truckload of money on this Senate race. However, this does not change the fact that Bill Nelson managed to LOSE to a GOP governor who barely won re-election in 2014 by 1.0 points. Given the underlying demographics of the state compared to the states where the other three Democratic Senators lost re-election this cycle, there can be no winner for running the worst Democratic Senate campaign for this cycle other than Bill Nelson.

Joe Donnelly. Boy, was this a race where the Democratic incumbent somehow managed to alienate everybody and lose re-election by a wide margin. His attempt to go Republican-lite in his ads by criticizing “socialists” and “the radical left” for wanting government run healthcare and abolishing ICE failed miserably. All that did was depress the Democratic voting base, and did nothing to pull swing voters to his end. By eliminating key differences with his Republican opponent, Mike Braun, by supporting “build the wall”, Joe Donnelly caused the state to vote for the Republican candidate by default, which is a strong trend for Indiana at this point. These trends were pretty damn apparent after 2016, where running to the right in an attempt to represent the middle just does not work for GOP Midwestern states anymore.

Heidi Heitkamp. She just got savaged by allowing her opponent, Kevin Cramer to set the narrative, similar to the main problem of Amy McGrath’s KY-06 campaign. Frankly, Heidi Heitkamp waited too long to begin airing her ads and highlighting her reasons on why she was a Democrat and why people voted for her. Her vote against Kavanaugh’s confirmation also hurt her (whether it was the right choice from a moral point of view is for another thread) with voters there, as it furthered an image as a generic Democrat, which does not go well with the state at all even though many North Dakotans personally like her. Hell, she was already so far behind in the polls in the last month of the cycle that the NRSC actually began cancelling their ad buys in October. I honestly believe that the DSCC should have followed suit and triaged this race in favor of further boosting Bill Nelson’s numbers with the Hispanic voters, as the writing was clearly on the wall by then for North Dakota, while Florida had plenty of signs that the statewide races there could go either way.

Republican:

Martha McSally. As a candidate with a clear capability of keeping the GOP-leaning voters in line (at least even more so than Kelli Ward or Joe Arpaio), she clearly blew a winnable race in a state that hadn’t elected a Democratic to the U.S. Senate since 1988. Arizona clearly was a state that personally didn’t like Trump despite solidly voting Republican for decades, and McSally’s attempts to embrace the president backfired here. Many voters there were also turned off by her accusations towards the Democratic candidate, Kyrsten Sinema, of committing treason, which were widely perceived as below the belt. She also lost a lot of ground trying to explain her votes to repeal the ACA and was extremely aggressive towards reporters in the closing months. All of that was enough for Martha McSally to be the first Republican to lose a U.S. Senate race in 30 years. While we’re on the subject of Martha McSally, I think Governor Doug Ducey’s choice to appoint McSally was not a good decision, as choosing failed U.S. Senate candidates as the nominees generally does not work well in recent cycles. Even the benefits of the power of incumbency do not mitigate this, as such advantages are having less of an effect on today’s political environment.

Patrick Morrisey. Yes, I know Joe Manchin’s personal appeal with the state made him the favorite in this race, but the GOP made a serious mistake by nominating Patrick Morrisey. Granted, Patrick Morrisey is not as bad as Don Blankenship, but had some major flaws that Joe Manchin exposed like hell to win. One, he was originally a D.C. lobbyist who moved to West Virginia in 2012 to get into politics. Two, Patrick Morrisey has been profiting off the opiate industry for years, while his wife lobbied to keep restrictions off hydrocodone. The opioid crisis has severely devastated West Virginia’s communities, and Morrisey and his wife’s misdeeds were well known to the state. Finally, Patrick Morrisey’s only defenses in the debate was essentially, “If you vote Joe Manchin, you get Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.” He even went so far to say that a vote for Joe was a vote for a health care plan by Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. That’s pretty dumbfounded, since it’s well known that Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have completely different plans when it comes to healthcare. Also, Joe Manchin was rather vulnerable and bleeding progressive support due to his voting record, which caused a noticeable percentage of Democrats to vote for Paula Jean Swearengin. I believe that had Evan Jenkins won the GOP nomination, Manchin would probably have narrowly lost re-election. Definitely a missed opportunity by the GOP here.

Matt Rosendale. He had a lot of help from the president, who came to rally for him four times over the election cycle. There was also another visit from his son, and at least two visits from the vice president to boost Matt Rosendale. This was also a state that voted for Trump by 20 points, and elected Republican Greg Gianforte who was a known body-slammer to the U.S. House twice. With all of that support from the White House, this race was clearly a winnable one for the GOP. The biggest problem with the candidate was that he was a carpetbagging real-estate developer from Maryland. Even his thick east coast accent seemed to emphasize the impression that he was an out-of-state transplant who knew nothing of Montana values. This sort of interloper baggage is what did Greg Gianforte in when he first ran for governor in 2016. Unless the Democratic candidate is of an atrocious quality like Rob Quist and Kathleen Williams were with their hard stance against assault weapons and other gun issues, Montanans generally do not look kindly to outsiders when it comes to politics. Jon Tester was absolutely not atrocious when it came to candidate quality. Also, Matt Rosendale immediately started running for office upon moving to Montana, and throughout his career, he ran for the state legislature, Lt. Governor, congress (twice), and Auditor before he ran for the Senate. All of that made Matt Rosendale a horrible candidate for the GOP, who clearly put this race in the “missed opportunity” column as well.

So that's my take for the Senate races, which may or may not be horribly wrong. Am curious to hear what you guys think and who would be your choices.

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